Seven Dreams East
by Cyrelia J
Summary: A period piece set in 1971 16 year old runaways Alfred and Matthew take to the rode, wild, free, and ready to take on the world. Mostly a pwp though Al might be a little innocent about what "doing it" really is. America/Canada


Note: So I got seriously inspired by Lana Del Rey's "Ride" and it blossomed into this fic here. Probably one of the more straight romance fics I've ever done and the first 1st person porn.

Warnings: small bit of angst, minor language, AU, sexual situations, and twincest.

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A year from now my brother Mattie will be gone. In two hundred eighty nine days Matthew Jones- now Williams- will be in Paris. At least that's what Madame Esmerelda told me in a musty old tent when Mattie and I were thirteen. I don't want to believe her. I _don't _believe her. But it hasn't made me stop counting the days. And that'd make it like almost a year to the day since Jim Morrison died. Which would be heavy symbolic... but I don't believe in symbols either or any of that other weirdo hippy stuff. I once tried a _Ouija_ board at a party and I once tried seven minutes in heaven too. They all thought it was funny that I ended up stuck in a closet with my brother. I thought it was funny that Mattie ate like five hot dogs and his lips still tasted like Corn Flakes.

I don't always think about stuff though, not really. Mattie says I don't think enough with my head- that's always been his thing. He daydreams and I fix stuff. I fixed this car. I spent all last summer after both of us saved forever for this old wreck and I didn't see I guess what Mattie would say is the potential but he did. He saw the 8 track player under the dash and like new chrome and even the seats that we fixed with this old fabric from when Grandmom redid her living room. Mattie sees everything even if his vision is a total waste. Mom always said it's because he reads at night with a flashlight. Gilbert said it's because he probably strokes it too much. But Mattie doesn't read those kinds of magazines. He reads like Oscar Wilde and Ginsberg and all that really queer stuff. I don't get it but I always look for magazine clippings and stuff 'cause Mattie loves it. Mattie loves a lot of things, really but I'm the one he loves most of all.

I smile when I look at him. It's so hard not to. I tease him sometimes when I say he looks like Janis Joplin with his big glasses and his long hair- he grew it that way 'cause he wanted to be like Johnny Winter. He's so pale when the sun bounces off him like this it's almost blinding. I forget to watch the road sometimes when we're driving. He's worried I'm gonna hit a deer but there's like 5 feet of American Steel between me and them and-

"Al…"

"Yeah right." He's smiling back at me as he looks back down at the loose papers resting on the book. It's so hard not to look at him when he looks at me like that. I can feel my own glasses slipping. I don't need them. I never did.

"Sorry." I'm not sorry. Mattie just shakes his head and I make myself look at the winding road and the sign warning for falling rocks.

I kick the speed up to seventy. I want to go faster. I want to go so fast that they never catch us. I want to go so fast that there's no time- that there's nothing but me and Mattie and nothing else. I love the way the big block 396 V8 roars when I hit 80. The road's still drying from yesterday's rain and I see Mattie out of the corner of my eye let go of the paper, the pen, and reach for me before the seatbelt. I hear the book drop. I feel his fingers hooking into my arm, his hand on my leg and it makes me push down harder on the gas. I can feel his leg next to mine, feel the wind whipping our hair like crazy and I laugh. I laugh and I hear him laughing next to me above even the roar of the engine, the roar of the September air. I crank up the volume, the speakers blaring "Brown Sugar" from "Sticky Fingers" and Mattie's sticky fingers are stuck to me like glue.

The top's down. That's the best part. It was too wet yesterday but today the sun is out and even as humid as it is the air rushing by feels amazing. It feels ten times better than sitting in class suffocating while Mrs. So and So drones on about Avocado's Number or whatever the heck they're learning this year. I'm learning life. I'm learning papers flying through the air from Mattie's lap like a dozen magic doves let loose to fly in the sky. It's like origami butterflies and even Mattie's turn of his head, the way his eyes get big behind those big glasses trying to catch them before they're released to the wind is like some crazy mysticism, like the finger of God reaching down from above. I'm going so fast that I can't watch him but I can feel the shift in the seat as he moves. I tease Mattie about being slow but the way he moves is just like water when he twists over the seat grabbing for every paper he can right as we round the bend. He's like the river flowing everywhere, like the Delaware through the trees and I can't help it I gotta look at him just a little longer.

I can still see the road. I mean I can see enough of it that the trees are going by crazy quick like a blur of green and even behind Mattie the rock face and railing are like a blur. But he's just standing there, standing up with his hair blowing all over, and he leans forward, putting his hands on the seat back with just a look of wonder watching the road disappear behind us. I want to watch him forever. I want to look at him just like that and even if I die. Even if I drive into the trees right now watching Mattie looking like that all beautiful and perfect and mine is just the most amazing thing in the world. He's holding the seat like he won't ever let go even as fast as we're going and he looks down at me with the craziest smile like the kind that usually only I have and he just begs me to go faster.

When he looks at me like that I can't deny him anything. When he looks at me like I'm the only one in the world that can make every dream come true I can't say no. I don't care how stupid it is- how crazy. He used to hide behind me when we were kids and he'd get picked on. "_Anything... you can do anything, Al, I know you can_." That's what I hear him saying to me when I kick the speed up flying along the river thankful that this early in the morning we haven't seen another car or a cop or anything. I cross myself as I look at the road just long enough to focus before I look back at him in those high waisted tight brown pants. He always wears long shirts even in the summer and the tight white shirt now is opened just one button at the top like... like the silliest thing really the rest wrapped around him shiny like mother of pearl or something but it's perfect. When I look at him, two days into exile, into being thrown out of our house for being disgusting faggots... for being like that with each other... I think this is the happiest day of my life when I let my eyes go wild between him and the road and his butt almost in my face, his long legs leaning against the front of the seat, his body rocking against the back of it so excited...

I swallow as I finally see a car passing on the double yellow while Mattie blows two happy kisses like a little kid. I almost hit the old station wagon but I'm like on fire as I come to another wicked curve, downshifting to third nothing but instinct as we almost slide, almost drift and I kick it up again while Mattie just holds onto the headrest with an excited scream. I can see his head tip back. I can see him look up at the sun with one arm over his eyes to shield them and he looks so good, breathing heavy, half closing his eyes as I speed up again thanking God and GM for posi-traction. Mattie has a way kissable throat. I kiss it sometimes. Sometimes I rest my head on his shoulder and just smell mom's V05 and put my lips to his pulse and feel it flutter against me. _I want to kiss you Mattie. I want to kiss you so bad right now. _

I'm hard. Sometimes watching him makes me get like that and I move my hand just a second to reach out and touch his leg, to put my hand on his thigh and squeeze or... Or hit a bump in the road that might've been a squirrel or a raccoon but it definitely wasn't a skunk. And somehow in the moment the wind picks up and hits just right and I can just picture the books falling on the floor when I see the open map flutter into the wind in the rearview mirror. I swear under my breath, Mattie's eyes meeting mine helplessly. I can hear the voice of my driving teacher- of dad- in my head yelling as I slam on the brakes throwing the car to neutral stalling out completely when I try to hurry up and shift back to first. Mattie kneels back down still looking behind us and I think of that station wagon breathing out hard imagining it coming around the bend like an avenging angel. I lower the volume of the radio as Mattie settles down and blinks at me while I turn the car back over and pull onto the shoulder of the road.

"I'll get it, Al," Mattie says looking at me with an easy smile even as I sit back in the seat and feel my pulse to make sure that it's still there. I watch him in the mirror. I watch his back growing smaller as he runs alongside the road and I think there's something beautiful and awful about seeing him running out of my sight like that. I turn the radio back up and shut my eyes in the shadow of the cliff face and trees feeling summer winds fading and the humid air making my hair stick to my neck. I try and remember if there's still an open pop in the cooler. Last night was the first night I ever drank birch beer. I shared it with Mattie and it made our lips tingle when I kissed him in the parking lot of the motel. I touch my fingers to my lips, moving them up and remember when I was younger and used to kiss my hand for "practice". I shake my head thinking we spent the whole night in that motel doing watching bable TV and stuffing ourselves sick with McDonald's. We did it like 3 times before we fell asleep.

I hear the door open as Mattie sits down hard next to me out of breath, the map being carefully put in the glove box. I lower my hand and open my eyes just in time to see Mattie looking at me triumphantly and he takes my hand just holding it in his own gritty with road dirt.

"Practicing again, Al?" He teases me, placing a small kiss to my index and middle finger. I smile back bringing our hands back to my mouth this time kissing the tips of his fingers, kissing his hand, his wrist, every part of him I get get to while Mick Jagger sings "wild horses couldn't drag me away." I hear the rush of that station wagon blow by us, the kids in the back calling us losers. I just smile bigger holding Mattie's hand more tightly praying that he doesn't slip through my fingers like the song. Mattie squeezes back looking at me with just a small little tilt of his head that reminds me of a puppy or this little bear we saw at the Columbus Zoo once.

"I'd rather practice on you, silly."

His eyes drop down to his lap looking shy. I don't know how he can do that. I've kissed him so many times at breakfast, at bed, even once at school when we got there too early and no one was looking. That felt really good too. It felt normal. It felt like we were just two teenagers totally in love and not... I don't let the smile falter even when I think of our parents screaming at us and Dad telling us we were no longer his sons. _But they won't come after us, will they, Mattie? It doesn't matter that we're sixteen, that we're alone, none of it... _

"We're not runaways... we're castaways," I say giving voice to everything going through my head making Mattie look back up like he knows every thing that goes on in my head. I said that to him the first night we spent on the road from home to here too but now it's like he totally gets it. He leans in a little, tossing his head, hair out of his eyes and back over his shoulder looking super kissable. I squeeze his hands more and lick my lips tasting lingering Clover gum before I lean in too and press my lips against his way too quickly. I kiss him again, eyes shut, open, feeling myself breathing harder with each steady growing close mouthed kiss.

I can feel him breathing against me and I can feel when those kisses mid pant turn to a mashing up lips with open mouths gasping for breath as we both scoot closer on the big bench seat. Sometimes I don't know if it's better to keep my eyes open or closed. I like to open them just to see if I can look in his eyes crazy close and see like a kaleidoscope or like holding a mirror up to a mirror and looking at each image inside itself growing smaller 'til it disappears. Yeah, it's kinda of like that and Mattie teases me about being a poet myself like he wants to be but I can never get this stuff on paper the way that he does. And it's only him, I think, that makes my head go in all these directions like every word I can think of isn't enough. I can feel his hands slipping from mine and for one weird minute I want to grab them back but I'm hard again- really hard- and instead I just put my hands on the tops of his thighs and squeeze them hard feeling them tense, feeling Mattie, hearing him moan softly as his hands nearly mirror mine.

"Al..." he pants out pulling back from me long enough just to say my name and swallow like he doesn't know what to do.

And when he licks his lips tasting mine lingering I have like the most fantastic idea I never had in my life. I want to taste him. Like I want my tongue to taste his lips like his is doing and before I think about it too much I just lean forward again- too fast, too hard, knocking him back against the door. He blinks at me owlishly, doubly so with those big lenses but that really just makes me want to do it more when he wears the surprised Mattie face. I can feel my glasses slipping down again. People say they're like Buddy Holly glasses and I got 'em for a song at a yard sale a few years ago. Mattie likes them. Mattie says they make me look super cool like one of the beats like "everything plus" he likes to say and that's all that matters. Matthew definitely looks like everything plus right now and my hands are on his shoulders like I don't know what to do with them. I hold him like I'm afraid he'll run away and sometimes I am but he always looks at me all cool cat and laid back and he just puts his hands over mine letting me think.

"Can I?..." I move in again but stop and stare and finally I just blurt out for him to hold still. He freezes like a statue- like something in a wax museum. He doesn't even blink and I don't even think he's breathing 'cause I told him to stop everything. That really excites me when he does that. "I want to…" I don't know why I never really thought about it. I guess I did but there never seemed to be time or place or always eyes watching and people listening. I wish I realized how much I loved my brother when I was young enough not to worry or care what people thought about that kinda thing but… but right now we have time and even if it's only a year it's way more time than I ever thought I'd have with Mattie all to myself.

I lick him. That is… it sounds weird but that's how I always thought it should be- tasting someone that is. I've heard about "frenching" before but I never dated girls really seriously- except for three dates with Natalie before she said I was treating her like a sister- and I don't know French. I don't want to know it. I just want to know how Mattie tastes so I lick his lips. I lick the side of his mouth a little nervously at first. I don't want him to think what I'm doing is weird or unhip or whatever goofy word he'd throw at me. I don't want to ever stop anything when it comes to him. I don't stop now. I can feel him trying not to shake where my hands meet his shoulders and I hear him gasp and start breathing again just like I'm the one giving it back to him. I don't know how I can feel his heart beating but sometimes like now I can even when I'm barely touching him it's like some far out connection between the two of us. It makes me crazy but in a good way. It makes me want do to more and I just… I just lick everywhere on his face.

I don't know if that's why dogs do it but it feels really good. It's amazing to taste all of Mattie's skin and feel his face getting wet when I lap at his cheek. I like it when I feel him start to squirm like he's being tickled. His knee comes up on the seat, foot wriggling out of his sneaker when he does. He hates getting shoe prints on the seat. I almost think he's gonna kick me like he does when it gets "too intense" or "too real" or too any number of things. I put my left hand on his knee holding it there and I can feel him start to pant as he turns his face. There's a salty sweaty taste of Mattie's skin and a little bit of sunscreen that hasn't soaked in yet from earlier this morning. I can see him kinda half look every which way and then his tongue too is tasting me back. It feels weird to be on the other end but weird good as warm wet bathes my face, licks along my jaw and it's not tickling but totally far out and hot.

I almost don't know what to do with my legs. They're like dead weight in front of me and between them I feel so hard and heavy I don't even know what to do. I can feel Mattie try to rub himself, shifting his foot almost jamming his heel into his crotch and I don't think I could manage that much between the steering wheel and the gearshift. I can feel in my throat a soft frustrated rumble and I just turn my head for a minute and that's when his tongue hits my lips, hits my own tongue hanging out so stupidly 'cause it seems like I can't catch my breath no matter how hard I try. I almost jump back when I feel it thick and moving against mine, lapping lick up and down and I can't help but follow him tasting birch beer and the gum he must've spit out earlier. Definitely double mint this time. He likes Blackjack and I hate licorice but I love licking him and right now it's like incense and peppermints just like the song. Or incest and spearmint but I don't care about all that right now.

"M-Mattie can I… I wanna…"

"Yeah… uh huh please please…" which comes out in a hurried rush against my mouth that sounds more like "peaspeas" but he slips towards me on the seat just as I slip a hand up his shirt. Mattie's skin is always so hot. He runs hot like the engine of the car firing off a thousand explosions a minute just like combustion. I think I'm gonna combust now as I push the shirt up over his stomach knowing he normally worries about sun but it registers when I start feeling a breeze and rain droplets fall from the trees that we're shaded like I could almost reach up and touch boughs bent heavy with water from the rain. Mattie doesn't complain and I'm glad 'cause trying to find a spot would be torture right now.

He lets me push the shirt up, pulling it over his head messing up his glasses, hair caught and wanna feel us skin to skin all sticky and sweaty and I can feel my hands moving on their own running down the his sides, over smooth hot skin and his hand are already on the hem of my black T shirt tugging it from the back over my head. I cuss at him 'cause he's got me all tangled but I can hear him messing with the buttons on his pants and it just makes me hurry that much more to throw this stupid shirt in the backseat over the blue typewriter case next to the cooler. Mattie writes poetry. He writes a lot of poetry about war and God and sometimes about wicked dirty stuff where he uses the words like "cock" and "come" and my hands are almost shaking too badly on the brass button of my jeans to get them off.

Mattie is barefoot. I don't know why I didn't notice that before but he does like socks in shoes and he's still trying to rock into his heel leg curled under him, face all pink as he bites his lip and tries to help me. I can see when I stop looking down and let him undo the fly that the front of his white briefs are tented up, stained just a little darker and I really hope he didn't shoot off already 'cause I really need to do him so much. I kick the jeans off in a hurry and then like some synchronized twining of two northern water snakes, Mattie lays back, slides down on the big seat pulling me on top of him. He's breathing heavy his hand grabbing the back of my neck as he wriggles his other leg on the seat throwing it half over into the back his bare foot in the air. I fumble under the seat, trying to find the latch to spring it back 'cause I really don't want to hit the steering wheel even out in the middle of nowhere like we are.

I find it, the seat hitting far back as it will go suddenly and then I'm falling on top of him kissing, feeling his arms circling under my arms tickling just a little bit, his fingers kneading my back. I'm between his legs, his right wrapped around my waist, heel digging hard to the small of my back but it just makes me wanna grind again him more, harder. I kiss him again but this time I feel like way more adult, like sophisticated, like I'm the best lover in the world when I decide to taste him inside. Mattie's lips are parted panting, praying, every please plea making me wanna rut against him harder- and that's when I put it in. I remember hearing talk about "slipping the tongue" about "frenching" and all those things that good girls didn't do from the three giggling in the back of the party while I messed with the record player.

I found Deep Purple that night and right now I find Mattie's mouth just as deep and way wet and hot. I feel his fingers curl harder into my back when I do that. I feel nails clawing into my skin and I don't know it's 'cause he's tasting me back or cause I keep rubbing against him faster trying to yank his briefs off so I can feel every bit of his skin hard and on fire against mine. I wanna do it. I love doing it with Mattie, I love it when he wraps his legs around me and lets me rub on him 'til I go off and erupt like fireworks on the Fourth. I don't even know what happens to his underwear when I shuffle it off to one leg. It might go in the backseat it might've been flung out onto the gravel when he kicked his legs. I don't care. I bounce on my knees a few times pulling my own off and into the abyss like everything's broken down around us and crumbled apart 'til it's just him and me and this car rocking and rolling and sweating while the Rolling Stones inspire me to roll my tongue against his.

Mattie sucks my tongue. My teeth bang against his as I kiss him more deeply, as I teach myself like everything that makes him moan and half sob pushing up against me. I can feel the sweat beading between our bodies making us stick 'til we slip and I can feel how wet it gets between the both of us rubbing hard and furiously as we both get closer to coming. Mattie's hands climb down. He grabs my butt and just holds me there like really torturously I'm trying to hard not to keep moving. He turns his hips and pushes and squirms and just uses me as much as he wants to get himself there right along with me so close. Sometimes he likes to shove me back and climb on top with his legs straddling mine bouncing up and down like some outta control savage and I could really go for that right now too.

I kiss him more. He doesn't let me stay in control, pushing his tongue back into my mouth, tasting my teeth, tasting the top, anything he possibly can and I can feel both of us breathing hard against each other until it's so heavy and desperate that there's saliva pushed out, probably running down the side of Mattie's face and I don't know how something that seems so gross can feel so good but it does. It feels good when I can feel the growing sticky between our bodies, when I can feel wetness rubbed out of my slit and Mattie doesn't grind so much as writhe back and forth and I don't want to separate even a little bit from his body feeling that heat, feeling his nipples brushes against my chest and even the soft blonde hairs on his leg rubbing my hip but I wanna finish so badly I can't stand it. One hand in Mattie's long tangled hair pulls roughly. I don't know why I do it I just know it makes him gasp and growl against my mouth, that one leg falling open like he wants me to… I don't even know what.

I have to shove my right hand between us and I can hear the soft whine, feel the vibration, the purr against my lips and God I never wanna stop kissing Mattie like this. I can feel my body stop, stay perfectly rigid when I fumble with my hand to close around both our dicks, sliding up and down Mattie and me both pushing our hips together even more crazy and needy when I do. It starts with heat. It always starts with heat, with Mattie's hot body, with the heavy heat between my legs stretching everything to taut and tight I think I'm gonna burst. I thrust into my own hand more furiously, feel Mattie bite me when I pull his hair even more. I think his glasses are half cockeyed and I know mine sure as heck are 'cause I feel them digging into the side of my face.

Mattie bites me and I love it when his teeth nip at my lips, when our heads twist in tandem and there's more banging and friction and I swear I really swear as much as you're not supposed to swear to God I don't think my dick's ever been this big or this hard in my entire life. I don't know if it's being outside with the wind whipping around us or the splashes of rain falling down, freedom or even Mick Jagger I my ear but I don't think I've ever needed it this bad in my life. I love doing Mattie like this. I don't care if we never get to New York or London or wherever we're even going 'cause I could die happy right here halfway to New Hope with new hope and like new love and want ten times higher than I ever thought I had.

I stop. I have to stop moving 'cause my head is spinning and just kissing Mattie hard enough to bruise, to swell is all I can do or think about. My hand stops pumping I just squeeze like I'm holding on for dear life like Dirty Harry's .44 is about to go off and I can't remember how many bullets are left in the chamber. Something like that. Something like kissing Mattie deep, hard, him letting his head be wrenched to the side so I can drown in the taste of him licking all the messy spit from his mouth, moaning his name in a slurring rush of sound letting my hips move where my hand stopped and I think the tape in the player might be unravelling or I am. Something buzzes past me a fly a car or something and in my head where the music outside stops registering in my thoughts I just hear "come on baby light my fire." I hear Mattie whining against me half sobbing, head pulling back forced me to let go as his hands slip from me one grabbing the back of the seat the other somewhere on the floor. I can see his head go back tossing from side to side, eyes screwed tight tears half leaking out of him and I can feel him shake stop shake stop and I know just like me he's gonna go off so hard.

My hand is on his chest as I put my mouth to his quivering neck, missing more, nipping, leaving little blood welling up rashes beneath the skin when he stops moving everything but a few hard thrusts into my hand getting it, my stomach, his chest sticky streamers of warm white wetness. I almost collapse on top of him. I can see his fingers running over his throat, over his neck where I've marked him and he looks at me with a blink blink of dazed honey dew devotion that I almost feel high. I feel light and loose like that stuff this guy Lars lit up in the boy's bathroom last year right before he got expelled for something no one ever said. He got expelled and I can feel expelled, expelling ecstatically over my hand again but this time it's not Mattie, it's me as I shove against him hard, moving my hand getting his slim hip sticky palmed as I drag him to me grinding against him with every other slow spurt long and deep and I almost think that I could bottle this like like ether or RC Cola something and be like knock down dead, my knees nearly giving out as I steady myself with a hand to Mattie's chest seeing sweat droplets intermingle with the trees' own outpourings as I try to regain my vision again.

Mattie sits up slowly, legs still spread around me, knees gently locked to my waist as he looks at me pushing out breathing, breathing in like he's never done it before. Like we haven't done it before dozen of times. I let my hand linger, gross, probably half staining the seat but I just want to kneel here and look at him naked and raw both of us like reborn into the world or some crazy beat stuff like Mattie would say. I don't know if I want to talk. I don't even know what to say except to say with my eyes, with my other hand to the side of his face how much I love him and how much I wish we could be joined like this into like that row row your boat snake with like no real end or beginning. Mattie told me about that once how it's like the cycle of life and rebirth in the world. I open my mouth but nothing really escapes me and Mattie just gives me that half shy half mysterious smile through fogged and smeared lenses his hair the most dynamite bird's nest ever. He shakes it out and laughs softly, putting his hands over his mouth looking down again like he's embarrassed and happy at the same time. He looks up, looks down, looks at me again and giggles behind his hand making me wonder if I don't have something on my face or my hair and his giddiness is almost infectious.

I just keep smiling at him as I reach for the napkins from McDonald's shoved into the glove box with a pristine owner's manual and a handful of other maps. But then I stop. I look at him, moving my sticky hand and I look at it wondering just... I lick it. I lick my fingers first and I can feel my nose wrinkle and I can feel my face making the same face I'm sure I did when Uncle James let us have wine once at Thanksgiving. It's salty. It's weird. It's thick and gooey and kind of... Mattie drops his hands and looks at me, laughter drawing to curiosity and I stop trying to figure out if I like it or hate it when I see him lower his head, long eyelashes sweeping briefly over his cheeks. He gives a lick a lot more adventurous than I did, looking up at me when he does. I don't think. I dip my head feeling muscles pulling in my back as I tilt my head and meet him there. Our glasses bang together but our tongues are two fingers apart the whole time licking my hand slowly, carefully and it isn't the taste I think about but Mattie's hot breath mixing with mine like a sweaty steam room curtained with hair. It's slow and careful and I clean just like Mattie does until my hand drops and we lap lingering spent lust from each other's faces. I open and close my right hand saliva sticky drying slowly in the thick air.

I still don't know what to say to Mattie and he still hasn't moved his legs. I don't care. I could feel his legs wrapped around me like this forever as I watch him rest back on his hands looking at me with the best "love you Al" look he's ever given me. Better than the 15th birthday portable Olivetti look or even the "finishing touches on Belle the Chevelle" look. I want to tell him that I love him. I want to tell him that was amazing and out of this world and that I hope we can do it like every night except maybe Sunday but I just lick my lips, lick his taste on me again and almost shut my eyes when I hear his voice. Mattie always talks quietly. He told me that he likes it when I stop and look at him and have to take every part of my attention to hear him talking. But I never want to miss what he says to me ever. Like never ever and I open my eyes watching his lips move just my name. That's all he has to say is my name.

"Al..."

"What were you writing, Mattie?" Is what I finally think to ask him my voice almost as low as his as I pull the tape out of the player to stop the music. I think of the papers flying along the road, lost to the wind and the passing careless cars driving them into the earth. Mattie just smiles at me again and ducks his head once more

"They call us dirty unclean sinners they call us lost they call us two lambs strayed they call us betrayed they call us fallen to Hades like every other acid tripped doped up dragged down hey you wear your hair too long anti war clown, they call us to arms two bodies not seeing one soul one whole split up spit up from the same bones of Eden, who walk the same roads under the same stars and dream and scream and fuck hard in the same cramped caddy cars..." I can see in his eyes there's more than that when he trails off and looks at me heavy from behind the glasses. And then he takes them off and I know he can't see me too well but he can see well enough even with his eyes like hyper focused on my face that cussing, those dirty words that he throws down on paper so easily go red to my face but not to his.

"What's... what the rest of it Mattie?" ..._Two hundred eighty nine days..._ Mattie takes my hand in his and looks past me blindly to the road giving a small squeeze.

"Everything."

"Forever, right, Mattie?" _I don't believe in God. I don't believe in fate._

"Forever, Al." ..._I don't believe in anything but you._


End file.
